Your Fear Monster Loves Messing With Your Wonderful Life!
Oh, how your Fear Monster loves messing with you! Are you aware of the signs?
When you think about being afraid, what comes to mind? Heart racing moments like when you see flashing lights in your rear-view mirror? Your future in light of a difficult health diagnosis you’ve recently received? A middle of the night phone call? Or is it the sweaty palms and butterfly stomach before you speak to a crowd?
It’s a little different when your Fear Monster is at work. It’s not obvious like the above examples. Instead, your Fear Monster quietly works behind the scenes conjuring up moments that leave you feeling out of sorts and confused.
Other moments under your Fear Monster’s influence leave you feeling down, discouraged, or defeated. And when you react in unhelpful ways that create the very situation or feelings that you were desperately attempting to avoid – that’s probably your Fear Monster too!
You may not consider yourself a fearful person, yet your Fear Monster gets a kick out of wreaking havoc in your life. It’s subtly working in the background in sneaky ways.
Don’t be fooled! You have a Fear Monster. In order to lessen its impact on you, you must know what its name is so that you are better able to recognize his work. The more you choose to live from a loved place and focus on who God created you to be, the less and less of an impact your Fear Monster will have on your life.
If I’ve piqued your interest around your Fear Monster, then take a minute to learn more here or here.
There are some pretty big clues to pay attention to – signs that your Fear Monster is at work in your wonderful life. Once aware you are of how your Fear Monster messes with you, then you are able to be proactive. While you might be inclined to try to “be enough” or “not be lazy” or whatever the opposite is for your Fear Monster, the remedy might surprise you!
Your Fear Monster might be messing with you if you are…
1. Bouncing Around Like a Pin Ball
Behaving like a pin ball that’s bouncing around from one thing to another without successfully completing anything, or, at best, a small percentage of what you set out to do, is a clue that your Fear Monster might be at work.
If that image doesn’t resonate with you, think squirrel: darting here and there and chasing the next shiny object. Distraction after distraction with very little focus.
Or procrastinating by putting off important tasks.
It’s all a ploy to keep you from failing – finding out that you are incompetent, not enough, or ordinary. Is your worst nightmare being rejected, appearing weak, or not mattering? All the frantic activity is your Fear Monster’s handiwork! It’s doing everything in its power to keep you from experiencing those unwanted feelings – except that instead those dreaded feelings are magnified!
2. Not Being Yourself
Ever find yourself in a situation where afterwards you have no idea why you acted the way you did – it just wasn’t you?
When you are mingling with certain groups of people or unfamiliar environments, do you find yourself becoming a different person?
Do you notice yourself acting in ways to try and compensate for your Fear Monster or going to great lengths to prove your Fear Monster is wrong, really wrong?
Beware, your Fear Monster is messing with you!
Sadly, your attempts to outwit your Fear Monster not only leads to an inauthentic you, but also right smack dab into the very feelings you were trying to avoid!
Let me be a bit more specific: if my Fear Monster is “I am incompetent” then I will find myself in situations where I’m flaunting the parts of me that I perceive to be wonderful in hopes of hiding my not enough parts. Rather than being genuine and admitting what I don’t know I might puff myself up or pretend to be someone I’m not.
If my Fear Monster is “I don’t matter,” which mine actually is, I may interact in some funky and inauthentic ways to try and prove how significant I am.
3. Engaging in Crazy Conflict
Do you find yourself having conflicts with someone in your life over and over again? It may feel like the fights are over random topics, but at the root is that old Fear Monster!
Fear is contagious, so when you are operating out of fear it naturally triggers fear in those around you!
When Fear Monsters battle, conflict is inevitable…and unending! When it’s all over, the conflict makes no sense unless you view it through the lens of your Fear Monster. Sadly, this craziness happens most with those closest to you.A
Personal Example
The first fight of any significance that my husband and I had many moons ago demonstrates this phenomenon quite well. After we got married, everything was humming along swimmingly until we were deciding which kitchen cabinet the Coffee Mate would be stored.
My husband wanted the Coffee Mate to go with the coffee cups so it would be convenient.
I wanted to put the Coffee Mate in a cupboard with other food items.
Looking back, there’s a reasonable rationale for both options, but the fight wasn’t really about the location of the Coffee Mate. It was a Fear Monster battle!
My pushing for the Coffee Mate to be stored with the food implied to my husband that where he wanted to store it was wrong – rousing his Fear Monster “I am Incompetent” and leaving him feeling like he didn’t know what he was doing.
On the flip side, his unwillingness to consider my point of view tapped into my feelings of “I don’t matter.”
As you can see, the conflict was not actually about the location of the Coffee Mate at all!
Just for the record – we stored the Coffee Mate with the coffee cups. These days we skip the Coffee Mate altogether and prefer healthier choices like coconut oil for me and MCT oil for him!
4. Operating at Your Own Expense
Scripture tells us to love others, but somehow, we skip over the part about loving others the way we love ourselves. The understanding is that you treat yourself in loving ways. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes love is very sacrificial! It all boils down to your motive and what’s driving your actions. Are you attempting to earn someone’s love, prove your worth, make sure you aren’t seen as selfish, or any number of other Fear Monster motivated reasons for operating at your own expense?
It’s hard to truly be loving when what you are doing is something you are doing for the wrong reasons. What are you tolerating in your life or work? What boundaries are you compromising? These just might be ways your Fear Monster is messing with you!
Love others as well as you love yourself. Matthew 22:39b (MSG)
We justify our actions by appearances; God examines our motives. Proverbs 21:2 (MSG)
5. Seeking Validation
Getting wise counsel – that’s smart. Seeking validation from others – not so smart.
Your identity is most solid when it’s based on what the One who created you has to say. Allowing your worth or your choices to rest on the opinion of others is a precarious place to be. You have insecurities – we all do! Your Fear Monster likes to highlight them whenever he can.
The quickest way to whittle away your life to nothing, and let your Fear Monster have free reign, is needing the validation of others or trying to please everyone.
6. Investing in the Wrong Things
We have two very powerful resources: time and money.
Beware, there are all kinds of ways to fritter away your time including social media, TV watching, game playing, Googling anything that comes to mind, and more! These aren’t bad pastimes, but are they leading to the results you desire?
It’s not any different with your money. When was the last time you skipped the little stuff, a coffee here, or a movie there, so that you could invest in something that would truly benefit your life or make a difference in the lives of others?
You are worth it, and in order to get where you want to be, to fully walk in who God’s called you to be, you might just have to invest in yourself or others.
Putting Your Fear Monster In Its Place
If you saw yourself in any of the signs I just mentioned, here’s the good news: it’s possible to face your Fear Monster! He doesn’t have to be in control! In order to do that you must…
-
- Identify your Fear Monster
- A – Increase your AWARENESS so that you notice when he’s messing with you
- B – Intentionally pause…BREATHE
- C – CHOOSE to lean into who God created you to be!
While those steps are simple, they take practice and trusting God to effectively put your Fear Monster in its place! In fact, without God in the mix, facing your Fear Monster is unlikely to happen.
How is your Fear Monster messing with YOU? Ready to identify your Fear Monster and who God created YOU to be?
Originally posted on 2/27/18, this post has been updated and revised just for you!
